A new person
“You okay there?”
He was lifting himself from the ground, surprised but seemingly unharmed. “Oh… you’re…”
You had a feeling you knew what he was going to say. So, you answered for him. “Yes, I am. And you?”
“Yeah, let’s get you up.” He extended his hand towards you. You made a face. How were you going to take his hand — um, pawhand? Still, on reflex, you seemed to reach out and grab his hand with your… pawhand?!
You swayed on your hind legs but managed to keep your balance. The costumer you bumped into waited for you to regain your senses, because you seemed to have gone off in a daze in observing this new body the costume has taken.
His ears twitched and nose wriggled, whiskers moving with them. “So, are you okay?”
You nodded. “But I could be better. Look, we may need to go! There’s some thieves after me! They took me to their guild and I thought they were good guys but then they wanted to force me into their guild! So, I set some of it on fire.”
“You… set… their… den… on fire??”
You nodded. “Well, I don’t know if it’s completely burned down on anything. But I’m sure they’re angry with me.”
He took a step forward and dived his head past the trees. The only sounds around were the ocean waves off the shore, the caws of birds and scratching of crabs against shells. But not the sounds of trees moving, or curses, or angry screams, or threatening screams of death that you had just escaped from.
You sighed in relief and nearly decided to slump, with limp legs, into the sand. The striped fur on your legs blew with the wind coming from the ocean, through your tufts of fur around your head almost like a mane. As an anthro tiger, maybe this wouldn’t be so bad — you thought, once he came back and smiled.
“Seems like you lost them. They’re the band of thieves known as Skulls & Bottom Ocean Floor.”
You tilted your head.
“There’s a reason for that name. Trust me, the city knows. We all know.” He grimaced, anger and sorrow on his face. “But anyways, you managed to lose them. That’s good. Even if they came after you all the way here, we’re too close to the Guardsmen Tower for them to even think of capturing you. No way would they dare to come down here.” He then goes on to explain how they’ve been a deathly thorn in the city’s, and this world’s, side ever since they got together and started ruthlessly taking from everyone.
You felt sorry now. Real sorry, but glad you got away from that crazy gang.
“My name’s Rocko. What’s yours?”
You thought about it. It was just a suggestion, but you’ll change your name after all. You told him your former name then said, “My name is (new name).”
“Yeah, I hear some costumers do that. Cool name.”
“How long have you been here?” you asked.
“Too long. I’m actually stuck here.”
Written by on 04 September 2019
